Publications

16 Oct 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Government Debt Management at the Zero Lower Bound

Keywords: by Robin Greenwood, Samuel G. Hanson, Joshua S. Rudolph & Lawrence H. Summers

August 2015
Article

A Comparative-Advantage Approach to Government Debt Maturity

By: Robin Greenwood, Samuel G. Hanson and Jeremy C. Stein

We study optimal government debt maturity in a model where investors derive monetary services from holding riskless short-term securities. In a setting where the government is the only issuer of such riskless paper, it trades off the monetary premium associated with... View Details

Keywords: Sovereign Finance; Debt Securities

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February 2009
Case

Avid Radiopharmaceuticals: The Venture Debt Question

By: Matthew Rhodes-Kropf and Ann Leamon

The CEO of a promising biotech company must decide how to respond to the macro-economic slump of late 2008. He had planned to pursue an aggressive schedule, moving the firm's Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease imaging compounds through clinical trials and into the... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Entrepreneurship; Borrowing and Debt; Venture Capital; Financial Management; Investment; Health Testing and Trials; Expansion; Biotechnology Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

April 2025
Article

Crisis Interventions in Corporate Insolvency

By: Samuel Antill and Christopher Clayton

We model the optimal resolution of insolvent firms in general equilibrium. Collateral-constrained banks lend to (i) solvent firms to finance investments and (ii) distressed firms to avoid liquidation. Liquidations create negative fire-sale externalities. Liquidations... View Details

Keywords: Insolvent Firms; Government Intervention; Liquidation; Econometric Models; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Policy

15 Sep 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Debt Redemption and Reserve Accumulation

Keywords: by Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk

06 Dec 2011
Op-Ed

Greater Fiscal Integration Best Solution for Euro Crisis

deleveraging that made them sell European sovereign debt. But the ECB's most powerful weapon - intervening in the bond market - is still locked away. Draghi needs to create consensus among the German "hawks" who worry about the... View Details

Keywords: by Dante Roscini

February 1997 (Revised February 2002)
Case

Mexico (B): Escaping from the Debt Crisis?

By: Huw Pill

Describes the response of the Mexican authorities and the international community to the "Third World Debt Crisis" that came to the forefront of global economic concerns in the early 1980s. Focuses on the respective roles of the private sector, governments (Mexican and... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Economies and Regions; Financial Crisis; Macroeconomics; Mexico

25 Apr 2014
News

To Pay Or Not To Pay: Argentina And The International Debt Market

05 Aug 2024
Research & Ideas

Watching for the Next Economic Downturn? Follow Corporate Debt

What really fuels a boom-and-bust cycle in the modern global economy? It’s not always household debt, says a new paper that parses in-depth data across 115 countries. Instead, rising corporate debt may flash the clearest warning that a... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

03 Aug 2011
News

No Ducking the Debt Ceiling

What debt ceiling? I haven’t been on Mars for the last two weeks, but close to it .off in the woods and on vacation, unplugged, untethered, and blissfully out of touch. So I missed the all-consuming topic that must have driven everyone... View Details

Keywords: Garry Emmons; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services; Administration of Economic Programs; Government

October 2003 (Revised January 2004)
Case

The 2001 Crisis in Argentina: An IMF-Sponsored Default? (A)

By: Rafael M. Di Tella and Ingrid Vogel

At the end of 2001, Argentina's economy and society both appeared on the verge of collapse. Furious about controls imposed on the convertibility of their bank deposits into cash (the "corralito") and huge proposed government spending cuts amidst high unemployment and... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Banks and Banking; Problems and Challenges; Decision Choices and Conditions; Currency Exchange Rate; Economy; Government Administration; Crime and Corruption; Argentina

March 2010 (Revised May 2011)
Case

Dubai in Crisis

By: Noel Maurer

On November 25, 2009, the small city-state of Dubai shook financial markets across the world when the Dubai World holding companies announced that it would ask its creditors to standstill its debts. After three decades of phenomenal growth, something had gone off the... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Development Economics; Financial Crisis; Borrowing and Debt; Business History; Business and Government Relations; Dubai

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In this video, produced by the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, Prof. Rithmire speaks with Keith Abell about how the Chinese economy became so reliant on real estate development and debt and what the Evergrande crisis means. View Details

July 2002 (Revised February 2003)
Case

Fresh Start? Peru's Legacy of Debt and Default (A)

By: Julio J. Rotemberg and Lisa Lewis

Considers the situation facing Alberto Fujimori as he takes office in 1990. Pays particular attention to Peru's long history of international borrowing, default, and renegotiation. This history suggests that the costs imposed by foreigners on Peru when it failed to... View Details

Keywords: History; International Finance; Sovereign Finance; Economy; Borrowing and Debt; Peru

June 2025
Case

TfL Pension Fund and the 2022 Gilt Market Crisis

By: Emil N. Siriwardane, Vincent Dessain, Emer Moloney and Carlota Moniz

On September 27, 2022, Padmesh Shukla, CIO of the Transport for London (TfL) Pension Fund, was keeping a careful eye on the turmoil in the U.K. sovereign bond (or gilt) market. When the new government announced the largest tax cuts the U.K. had seen in half a century,... View Details

August 2007
Teaching Note

Creditor Activism in Sovereign Debt: "Vulture" Tactics or Market Backbone (TN)

By: Laura Alfaro and Ingrid Vogel

Teaching Note to 706057. View Details

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Financing and Loans; Bonds; Contracts; Investment Activism

February 2016
Case

Debt and Democracy: The New York Constitutional Convention of 1846

By: David Moss and Dean Grodzins

On September 23, 1846, delegates to New York State's constitutional convention prepared to vote on a proposal that its principal proponent, Michael Hoffman, conceded would be “a serious change in our form of government.” The proposal would place tight restrictions on... View Details

Keywords: Sovereign Finance; Governance; Laws and Statutes; Government and Politics; History; New York (state, US)